Chennai Hackathon March 2012

Ideas page for the hackathon is Chennai_Hackathon_March_2012/Ideas

This is a Wikipedia/Wikimedia hackathon, where developers are invited to come write cool hacks on top of the amazingly large amount of data that the wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Commons, Wiktionary, Wikiquotes, Wikisource, etc.) expose in a huge variety of languages.

Hacks can be anything, from an Android app that gives you 'situation' quotes from Wikiquote based on sentiment analysis of your text messages, to an app that gives you wonderful images of the places you are at using Commons, to beautiful visualizations with Wikipedia edit histories, to automatic song/album information gathering from Wikipedia, to amazing dictionary interfaces across languages using Wiktionary, to anything else that you can dream up. We'll have a few people who have experience with the various APIs/data available.

Note: This is not a MediaWiki hackathon - Patches/Extensions to MediaWiki are most welcome, but you are by no means restricted to that.

Date	Saturday, March 17, 2012
Time	10 AM to 6 PM
Venue	Thoughtworks, Taramani, Chennai Ascendas IT Park
Contact	yuvipanda@gmail.com
Hashtag	#wikihackchennai
Register	Sign up here
Shortlink
IRC	#mediawiki on FreeNode
Twitterwall	http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=twitter&lng=&q=wikihackchennai
Liveblogging / Etherpad notes	http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/chennai-hackathon-notes
Report	http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-March/059459.html
Photos	commons:Category:Hackathon_Chennai_2012

Schedule

1015 - 1300 -- Hacking after identifying tasks
1300 - 1315 -- Introductions + Pitch
1312 - 1400 -- Lunch
1800 - 1900 -- Demo Time
1900 - 1930 -- Signatures + Photo
1930 - Hibernate

Getting there

Thoughtworks is located at 9th floor Ascendas Tech Park phase III, Taramani (map). Closest railway station is Thiruvanmiyur MRTS station (10 min walk). Closest major bus stop is at Tidel Park on OMR (10 min walk).

Topics, Goals, & Outcomes

A bunch of cool hacks that make people go 'woah, that's awesome!', using the Wikimedia projects' APIs and Data.

FAQ

What you need to know

You need to have some sort of prior experience developing stuff (web apps, mobile apps, data mungers, anything at all!). There are a variety of things you can do (CSS/JS hacks, webapps that use the API, Mobile apps, data mining) that pretty much anyone with some developer experience is bound to find something fun to do. This is a hackathon, and not a workshop.
Knowledge of Free Software License, comfortable using any Online Project hosting websites (like Github) since we would want you make the code you write for the hack freely available, online.

What language can I use

Any programming language you are comfortable with and can make sense of JSON / XML if you are planning to hack with the web API.
Any language/framework which will help you build mobile apps (Android SDK, Objective-C, Windows Phone SDK, etc.)
HTML(5), CSS, JQuery, JS for web mashups, browser addon SDKs, etc.

How can I prepare for the hackathon

Read through links in Resources, check out the Examples.
Learn more about the web API and run through the tutorial.
Give a thought about some idea / hack you may want to build.
Feel free to ask questions! Contact us.

What qualifies me to come

Show us some code you have written, tell us what you know, tell us why you love hacking (and Wikipedia) in general, and you'll get the pass :)
Sign up form

How to spread the word

Pass on the word to your fellow geek friends.
Use #wikihackchennai on Twitter.

Notes

Notes taken during Demo time

Contact

Mail: yuvipandagmail.com
Panic Phone for emergencies: 09176315499 (YuviPanda)